


A Threat or a Warning

by TheWriterWhoNeverWrites



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Canon Rewrite, F/M, Lucien Vanserra-centric, and in character, and not whatever happened, trying to write Lucien in ACOMAF realistically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28103571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWriterWhoNeverWrites/pseuds/TheWriterWhoNeverWrites
Summary: I scanned him a second time, took the time to follow the line of his face and the plain fighting leathers lying across his chest. They were looser. Loose around his arms where tense muscle had once been, the belt holding his daggers pulled tighter around his waist as if it was holding him together too. The old remnants of a bruise was visible under his hair by his temple, the bluish yellow standing out more across his pale skin in the cold. It wasn’t something that I would normally notice, something I would give any thought to with Lucien, but...“Feyre.”IE: A rewrite of a scene from ACOMAF.
Relationships: Feyre Archeron & Lucien Vanserra, Feyre Archeron/Rhysand, Tamlin & Lucien Vanserra
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	A Threat or a Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I should preface this with the fact that I haven't read past ACOMAF (yet). I really enjoyed Lucien's character in ACOTAR, and was disappointed with the way his character was handled in this second book. I wish we could have explored the impact abuse can have from all facets. Which led to this rewrite.  
> I have nothing against the original writing of this or the author, it's just my person thoughts on another way this scene could have played out.  
> Anyway, enjoy!

Lucien took a step towards me.

I stepped back.

There was only three feet between me and the stream. Lucien's eye widened slightly.

“We need to get out of here. Tamlin’s been...”

He trailed off, not finishing the sentence we both knew the end to.

I scanned him a second time, took the time to follow the line of his face and the plain fighting leathers lying across his chest. They were looser. Loose around his arms where tense muscle had once been, the belt holding his daggers pulled tighter around his waist as if it was holding  _ him _ together too. The old remnants of a bruise was visible under his hair by his temple, the bluish yellow standing out more across his pale skin in the cold. It wasn’t something that I would normally notice, something I would give any thought to with Lucien, but...

“Feyre.”

His voice was hoarse as he interrupted the silence between us, a strain to it that I hadn’t heard since under the mountain. Since Amarantha had laughed as spikes of flame had slowly descended on me. On  _ us.  _

He’d screamed my name then too, over and over as we’d come closer to that death of heat and light. As his life was in the hands of an illiterate human who couldn’t even read the riddle set in front of her. That same desperation was there  _ now _ . 

_ He wants me home as badly as he’d wanted to live. _

I hesitated and he saw it - taking another step forwards - but I was back another step in a second. His eyes were searching mine, as if looking for a way through to me, a way to to change my mind. I allowed my face to harden again.

He’d find none.

I would not go back to be Tamlins  _ doll _ , to be what he needed while he took and took and  _ took _ without any regard for what it did to me. As he used me to feel like he’d actually been the protector that he wished he was.

He needed to do that himself.

_ I had _ , I realized. I  _ had _ done that myself. Had started to feel more, to be able to smile. And no, I hadn’t done it alone. But the work? The time? The pain? 

That was mine. 

“He hasn’t been himself,” Lucien continued, and he was glancing down at the snow as he spoke “I’ll take you right too him, you can talk to him and then mayb-”

“ _ No. _ ” I breathed. The word rasped through the air, the trees around us, the river behind me.

Lucien took me in again. Except this time I could feel him take in the full expanse of the changes that had overtaken  _ me _ these months. The illyrian fighting leathers, the fullness in my cheeks, the strength in my stance and in my arms as I held my bow steadily aimed. 

He spoke again, but now there was a hesitation to his words, as if he didn’t fully believe them anymore,

“Feyre,” He said, holding out a hand, “let’s go home.”

“That stopped being my home the day you let him lock me up inside of it.”

“I..”

He trailed off again, and his lips tightened into a line. 

“He’s sorry.” He tried again, “He’s sorry, it was a mistake. People make mistakes Feyre, he’s  _ sorry _ .”

The more he spoke the less it sounded like he was talking to me, and the more it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. I glanced at that bruise again.

“Trust isn’t born from apologies Lucien. It comes from action.”

“You haven’t given him a chance!”   
“I gave him  _ too many chances _ .”

I hissed those last words, so quietly I was sure only Lucien heard them as they echoed across the blanketed empty abyss we stood in. The sentinels behind him maintained their line. I tightened my grip on my bow and allowed my aim to fall more steadily onto him. My breathing was coming in pants now, my mind felt as if it was spiraling

_ No. No I won’t go back. I can’t go back. I can’- _

A movement from behind Lucien caught my eye and it was as if the weeks of Cassian's training hit me all at once. I lowered myself, pulled the bow towards me and aimed directly at the sentinel that had moved away from the other three and towards me. He froze, his annoyance clear on his features.

“Just grab her so we can leave!”

I pulled my bow tighter.

I would do it. I would fire it straight into the separation between his shoulder plate and his breastplate. Would use that small gap I knew was there from my months seeing those exact pieces of armor to my advantage. It would sink into flesh and bone, pierce his lungs if I angled it right. I could, and I  _ would. _

Lucien's gaze followed mine and I knew he knew that too. Knew that I would. He put up a hand, turning towards the sentinels, his gold eye remaining focused on me as he said,

“Go back to camp,”

“But Lucie-.”   
Go. Back.” He snarled, the short temper and fire in his voice more familiar then I had thought it would be.

“You will report nothing of what was seen, will speak nothing of Feyre. And you will do so knowing that  _ I will hear _ if you do not.”

And I wasn’t sure how much fear Lucien was able to put into his people, had trouble imagining anyone truly fearing him after the power of Rhysand and the strength of Cassian and the darkness of Azriel. But the Sentinel bowed, and in that moment I could see Lucien as he was supposed to be, as he  _ had been _ when we had lived together all those months ago. As the second in command to the second more powerful highlord in all of Prithiyan. 

The sentinels winnowed away, far enough that I could no longer see them, and suddenly it was just Lucien and me in the silence of the forest. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling locks from the loose ponytail he had it set in behind him, 

“You never did listen to a word I say..”

It was a joke, an attempt to lighten the thick heaviness that had fallen between us, but I didn’t smile. 

“You…You look better.”

He spoke quietly, his gaze running across my body again, though not in the way Tamlins had, or the way the creeps of the night court had. There was only calculation there. Analyzing.

I couldn’t say anything to give away Rhys, couldn’t say anything that could put him or our people at risk. Not for me. Not for Tamlins obsessions. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to trust Lucien, how much of myself I was starting to see in the thick dark circles under his eyes.

I couldn’t risk it.

“What do you want.”

The question seemed to catch him off guard, and he shook his head,

“Tamlin needs you back.”

My eyes narrowed,

“What do  _ you _ want? You Lucien. What. Do. You. Want?”

And that anger from before was returning, the frustration. But there was a thick, dark undercoating of fear surrounding it. He took another step. My arrow didn’t move.

“I will kill you.” My voice was steady, but my mind was screaming, “If you try to take me back. I will. I  _ told _ Tamlin I was fine. I sent that letter, I  _ told him not to look for me _ .”

He stopped, and I appreciated that at the very least I could trust him to take me seriously. He didn’t speak for a moment, fiddling with the end of one of his daggers. I trailed his fingers, waiting for any sign of tensing, of potential attack, but they remained loose.

“I want to believe you.”

His voice was quiet in the clearing, too soft to echo across the empty air.

And I wasn’t expecting that. 

“I want to believe you.” He repeated, a desperate look in his eye, “You look better. You sound more in control. But with  _ Rhysand _ ? Feyre, I  _ can’t _ .”   
And there wasn’t anything I could say.

“I’ve seen what he can do,  _ you’ve _ seen what he can do to people, to their minds.” He took a shuddering breath, as if specific scenes had flashed through his mind, “I saw what he did to  _ you _ . Every night for months. You were an object in his hands, a  _ play-toy _ fo-”

“Shut. Up.”   
The defensiveness in my voice must have surprised him, because he took a step back. 

I snarled, "You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And that was the moment. He’d been close, been close to figuring it out, to really seeing me. But his eye narrowed again. He glanced at the arrow in my hand, then behind him where the Sentinels no longer stood. He sighed.

“He will come for you.”

“”Lucie-”   
“He will. It won’t matter what I say, it won’t matter what you do. He’s going to come.”

And then he winnowed away.

I stood there for a moment longer, my arm still tensed, the bow still pointing forwards, before I felt my body collapse and I fell into the snow. The entirety of the situation collapsed upon me in a second, and my breath caught in my throat.

_ He had almost taken me. He was going to.. He had threatened… _   
I pulled another breath into my lungs. Then another. And another. 

He hadn’t. He hadn’t done anything. 

The snow started to seep through my fighting leathers, the edges of my knees and my ankles becoming damp. Lucien’s final words echoed through my head

_ No matter what you do. He’s going to come. _

And I wasn’t sure if it was a threat…or a warning. 


End file.
